Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 462

Chapter 462

Chapter 462

Chapter 462

IVORY

—

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It came out of me with the specific quality of the one in the east courtyard when I’d read Kael’s note about the books

genuine, helpless, the full version that bypassed everything I normally managed to keep contained. The laugh of someone who’d been in a basement on a stone floor for hours and had come home and found something that was exactly what it needed to be.

“I know,” Nina said, to Kael, in Aria’s exact flat tone.

“I know,” Jordan said, matching the inflection with dedicated accuracy.

Kael looked at his inner circle.

“I drove,” he said.

“We know,” four voices said simultaneously.

Kael looked at her.

She was already looking back at me.

I laughed.

“She didn’t even look at you,” I said.

“I noticed,” Kael said.

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“She said I know and kept looking at my wrist,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“That’s-” I started.

“Ivory,” he said.

“That’s very funny,” I said.

“Please stop laughing,” he said. “It’s not that funny.”

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Chapter 462

“It is that funny,” I said. “It is specifically that funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Jordan said, from somewhere to my left.

“I’m going to need everyone to stop,” Kael said.

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“The look on your face,” Nina said, and her voice had the quality of someone who was keeping it together out of respect and was finding it quite hard.

From somewhere behind the gate, someone shouted.

“Three cheers for the Luna!”

The response was immediate – not one person, not two, the specific volume of a pack that had been holding something together all night and had been waiting for the moment to release it. The cheer went up from inside the gate, from the pack grounds, from whatever gathering had formed while we were on the road.

Aria turned toward the sound.

The gate opened.

And Shadowmere came out.

–

Not organized the specific joyful chaos of people who’d done something difficult together and were done being professional about it. Pack members pouring through the gate with the noise and energy of people who’d been holding the line for hours and had reached the other side. The combatants, some of them still in the partial states of the night’s engagement. The people who’d been in the shelter, emerging now with the cautious relief of shelter-leavers.

Martha, somehow at the front of the group despite being sixty-three and having the specific physical presence of someone whose primary professional domain was a kitchen, with the expression of someone who had opinions about the evening and was now expressing them through motion rather than words.

Celine shaking slightly and furious about the shaking, right behind Martha.

Amber from the textile workshop.

Margo, with a notebook because Margo always had a notebook.

Priya, who I didn’t yet know but who had the bearing of the training yard on her and was looking at Aria with the specific expression of someone who’d followed a person into something and was glad they had.

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Chapter 462

The cheer went up again. “LUNA! LUNA! LUNA!”

Aria was surrounded.

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I watched it happen the specific thing I’d been watching happen in increments for months, the pack updating its relationship with the person who’d been standing in a position they’d never fully assigned to her. Not the grudging tolerance of people managing a situation. Something else. The specific joyful noise of a pack claiming its own.

Santos was clapping.

Santos did not clap for things. Santos was expressing approval through the most deliberate method available to him and watching Aria with the expression of someone who’d run a very difficult operation alongside someone and had come out of it with information that updated his assessment fundamentally.

Jason appeared from somewhere with the walkie-talkie still in his hand and an expression that contained everything he’d seen from the elevated positions tonight.

She’d held the northern border with thirty wolves and an impossible link she’d never tested at scale.

She’d used the blood-bending technique I’d never been able to teach anyone.

She’d sent Damon running from a fight he’d staged specifically to expose Shadowmere’s weakness.

She’d done it all without Kael, without Nina, without Jordan or Elite. With the pack she’d been given and the training she’d accumulated and the backbone she’d found on her own.

They were cheering for her.

Kael was standing beside me, watching the same thing I was watching.

“She did that,” I said. Not to him specifically. To the air, to the accounting.

“She did,” he said.

“I was wrong,” I said. “About the timeline. About how long it would take for this to happen.”

“You weren’t entirely wrong,” he said. “You were early.”

“I was wrong about the reasons,” I said. “I thought it would happen because the pack would eventually accept the position. That’s not what happened.”

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